Philippe Moisan was born in Montmartre (Paris) in 1962, the grandson of a political cartoonist at the Canard enchaîné and a peasant farmer of Ile de France. Both were free thinkers.
The child of two graphic artists, Philippe spent his time playing amid their drawings, photographs, typefaces, and listened to the stories told by their painter and photographer friends, such as Jean Schuman, Bernard Gorsky, Claude Sauvageot, or Robert Doisneau.
In 1983, back in Paris, he joined the École du Louvre on the quays of the Seine to attend the classes taught by egyptologist Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt as well as those taught by Pierre Amiet, curator of the Guimet Museum, and a specialist of East Asian arts.
In 1984, during the Cold War, Philippe Moisan spent a year in Berlin as part of his military duty, hung out in the Dahlem museum, and listened Karajan at the Philharmony, Wagner’s Tetralogy, sheltered from an icy winter.
Starting in 1987, Philippe started out as a self-taught photographer. His life has been shared between the smell of kerosene and the sound of his camera shutter ever since.
From 1998 to 2000, his photographic work began, mainly in Eastern European countries, then in Miami, where he regularly set up shop in the new and savory neighborhood of Little Cuba.This era allowed him to learn the codes of studio and exterior lighting, thanks to collaborations with fashion magazines.
In 1997, these experiences and discoveries led him to a major detour through the laboratories of the Paris International Photography Institute, Speos. Following the advice and instructions of Mr. Georges Fèvres, official proofer of photographers Henri Cartier-Bresson and Josef Koudelka, Philippe Moisan absorbed the subtleties of black and white photography printing. He decided then to forever work on argentic paper and to continue using traditional film.
He took part in his first collective exhibition in 1997 at the Paul Ricard cultural space located on Rue Royale in Paris, on the subject of fashion and waste, a premonitory topic already announcing a radical change in his photography.
Year 2000 in Sao Paulo (Brazil), a period of twelve decisive and explosive years began, which gave birth to the photographic world from which Philippe Moisan still draws his inspiration today.
Occasionally working for french daily newspaper Le Monde, he discovered Buenos Aires and Argentinian desert Ischingualasto, Nevada and Death Valley, young cities planted in the sand of the Arabian peninsula, Zen temples hidden by immense trees around Koyasan and Kyoto in Japan, the Embera Indians of Panama, the searing esthetic and graphic totalities of Hong Kong, New York, Shanghai, Bangkok, and so many others…
In 2012, these discoveries, impressions, flashes and this visual drunkenness led him to carry out his first exhibition during the “Photography Month” in the Marais in Paris.
Bangkok 2014, Philippe Moisan revealed his new large exhibition at Ardel’s gallery, showcasing large-size original prints and huge calms. This exhibition was named “Vacarmes”.
In spite of his multiple wanderings, he experiments in Bangkok a city of ambiguous complexity, knocked down in a scathing transformation, where old « cliches » have no more their place. These materialist and spiritual contrasts brought him to prepare a new duo exhibition with Thai Artist Rush Pleansuk, starting 18h June 2015 at « Alliance Française ». This event presented their new works in a called exhibition : « In the jungle of Angels ».
